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Wednesday, this year’s coldest night, was so frigid that even Mitt Romney would’ve looked warm. Yet for her new movie “Parker,” mobs shivered outside for Jennifer Lopez. Obama didn’t draw such a crowd.

“Jennifer’s wonderful in this. I’ve known her. After I did a couple of drafts, I called her. The action’s set in Palm Beach, and, since Florida’s really Latin America, who’s better than Jennifer? Her work knocked me out. There’s moments in other projects that I knew were not great. Give an actor notes, best he’ll give you is 25 percent. Give Lopez notes, and she gives you 100 percent. Helen loved her in it.”

When I met Jennifer she showed ready for her close-up. With a coat carrier, hair fluffer, assistant, etc. Off came the white coat matching the white dress, shaken was the long hair, on came the camera smile.

“I think I am now ready to really work as an actress,” she said. “Maybe because I’m different now. I’ve suffered some experiences lately. These last years I’ve had to face life. The truth is, that must be it. To be a great actress you must live through difficult times in order to feel it and remember that pain.”

Forget her pain. To the truly important things. What’s she do with her old clothes?

“I’m stupid enough to do my own stunts,” he told me. “Problem is, I started doing that early on, back in 2002 when I did ‘The Transporter,’ so I’ve ended up digging a big hole for myself.

“I’ve been in a national diving team, been a high diver, done body building, martial arts. In my career I always wanted to do my own stuff. And I’ve hurt myself a few times, where I had to heal and rest. In this one, I did hand-to-hand fighting and sequences jumping 300 feet in the air off a balcony into a car doing 50 miles an hour. I enjoy the adrenaline.”

And Patti LuPone plays Jennifer’s mother. Her mother?

“Yeah. I know Taylor Hackford. And my agent called and said Jennifer’s Latino and you’re Latino. My role is to counsel my daughter whose life is upside down. We shot in New Orleans, which was great. I was only there two days. Listen, it’s a small part.

J.K. ROWLING, never giving up on Dumbledoriana, now wants to redo a director’s cut of several Harry Potter movies. What that actually means, I don’t know . . . No plastic surgery for Cate Blanchett: “I haven’t admiration for the work I’ve seen. It’s not great. I fill with pity seeing those faces on the red carpet.” . . . Jamie Foxx wearing hot red suede vacuumed up rib-eye at BLT Steak.

RICKY Gervais, who’s everywhere on everything is onto Tina Fey to be his foil in “The Muppets” sequel . . . Larry Thompson on the Elizabeth Taylor movie with Lindsay Lohan: “It was not for anyone with a faint heart. Producing that, I turned 50 shades of white.” . . . Hogs who diss Bloomberg’s 360-foot apartments and want a nice large roomy spacious studio, NYC’s average monthly rent is now $3,368.

IN April. Plume publishes Delia Ephron, Nora’s sister’s novel. “The Lion Is In” is about three gals — a klepto, a beauty, a Holy Roller minister’s wife — on the lam together. In rural Carolina, their car goes poop. They shelter in a gin mill, where they experience self discovery, meet something named Marcel, and in 304 pages you can learn what happened.

QUESTION of two biology 101 students: “So does the Earth revolve around the sun or does the sun revolve around the Earth?”

Answer: “Who gives a rat’s ass?”

CHRIS Brown urging Feb. 10’s Grammy producers to do a duet with Rihanna . . . John Mayer and Katie Perry, closer than a little boy and his dog, to bunk together? They’re talking about sharing the same kennel . . . Steven Seagal wears a cotton $5,000 bulletproof vest resembling a polo shirt but with anti-ballistic layers, which defend against stabbing, a 34-magnum revolver and a submachine gun.